A small smile. “You didn’t. I explained of my own free will. Not exactly top secret.” He leaned back against the wall. “I don’t usually have this problem. My jobs, I keep them closer to home, work around my schedule. This?” He shook his head as I finished the note. “Major finagling. When Jack called, I’d finished a big case, hadn’t really started anything new, and had vacation time banked so I was able to take off on short notice.”

He went quiet then, gaze moving away, fingers tapping the dresser.

“I’m going to guess it’s not an open-ended vacation,” I said. “How much time do you have left?”

“Not enough.” He exhaled softly. “That’s one reason I was really counting on…”

“Finishing this tonight.”

He nodded. “A few more days and I’m out of here. And once I’m gone, I don’t know how much help I can be, even with information.”

Without Quinn’s FBI sources—and Quinn himself—our investigation would be in trouble. I put the note where Jack would see it, then followed Quinn out.

Beside the parking lot was a pool. The sign said Closed for the Season, but judging by the moss-lined cracks in the concrete walls, it had been closed for a lot of seasons. Of the surrounding security lights, three were dead and two were flickering with their last breaths, but the last still held on. I walked under that one. Close enough for Jack to find me easily, and the angle let us keep an eye on the parking lot and anyone approaching.

I lowered myself to the cement, legs dangling over the pool’s edge. Quinn sat beside me.

For a minute, we just gazed at the pool and the layer of trash that blanketed the bottom. Pizza boxes, pop bottles, beer cans, a running shoe…whatever people or the wind had dumped inside.

Quinn pointed at the sneaker. “Whenever I see that, I always wonder how the shoe got there. A pair, I can see. Maybe you take them off to swim or go barefoot and forget where you left them. But how do you lose one shoe? Wouldn’t you notice?”

Using my toes, I worked the strap off the back of my opposite heel, and let my left shoe fall into the darkness below. Quinn gave a soft laugh, and tugged his off. It hit the bottom with a squishy thump.

“One high heel and two unmatched sneakers,” he said. “Now that’s a mystery.”